Mr Bill Gates with his friend as well as his wife has been betting on a number of issues and picking ambitious goals that impact the world we live since forty years ago. We see most of them happening. We in APOC received the 2015 Annual letter of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with great excitement and appreciation particularly their new bet "We'll also see the last of diseases like elephantiasis, river blindness, and blinding trachoma, which disable tens of millions of people in poor countries".

The publication of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s annual letter, further promotes the importance of 2015 as a year for change, and a turning point in the broader community embracing this opportunity to have a major impact.

Dr Lucien Manga is the new Chair of APOC Committee of Sponsoring Agencies

Dr Lucien Manga

Appointed on 8 July 2014 by the Regional Director of WHO Office for Africa (WHO/AFRO), Dr Lucien Alexis Emmanuel Manga, a Cameroonian national, will from now on chair the sessions of the Committee of Sponsoring Agencies (CSA), a statutory body of the African Programme for Onchocerciasis control (APOC). He will replace Dr Chris Ngenda Mwikisa who is now the Manager of Corporate Services (MCS) and Acting Coordinator of the Director’s Office at the Programme Headquarters.